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Adecco Group

Adecco Work Trends Study: job seeking goes mobile, along with the workplace

Adecco’s 2015 Work Trends Study presents key findings and recommendations on social recruiting, digital reputation and emerging trends for the Future of the Workplace.

Zurich, Switzerland, October 7, 2015. Adecco Group, the world’s leading provider of HR solutions, today publishes its 2015 Work Trends Study. Key findings show that job seeking is ever more mobile, as is the workplace. The role of social networks in the job seeking and recruiting processes is becoming more and more relevant. Furthermore, new trends are emerging, such as smartworking, which will affect the work environments of companies and will require new thinking on the traditional relationship between employer and employee.

Over 31,000 job seekers and more than 4,100 recruiters from 26 countries took part in Adecco’s survey, sharing their opinions and experiences on the use of social media for recruitment and job search practices.

The data analysed provides insights into the use of social media for professional purposes, its effectiveness in matching job seekers with open positions, the relevance of web reputation and its impact on recruiting, as well as new emerging trends such as smartworking, whereby flexibility of the workplace will be key in the future of work. Interesting factors emerge from among the key findings that can help guide both recruiters and job seekers in improving the efficiency and effectiveness of their online activity.

Among social networks, LinkedIn remains the most popular platform for professional purposes, for both recruiters (61%) and job seekers (34%), whereas Facebook is the go-to network for all social activities including personal branding. For job seekers, the probability of being contacted by a recruiter increases with the number of social networks they use: by being active on one network, the probability of being contacted by a recruiter is 16% but increases to 46% when a candidate uses all five of the main global platforms.

The Study also highlights that job seekers are more ‘mobile’ than recruiters: 65% of job seekers frequently or sometimes use a mobile device for online job searches, whereas among recruiters, this figure drops to 41% when searching for a candidate or highlighting open positions.

Finally, it reveals that flexibility in an individual’s place of work will become key to new styles of work in the future. Even though the majority of job seekers and almost half of the recruiters have never heard of the smartworking concept, they showed strong interest in integrating smartworking solutions into their daily practices. While job seekers are more open to smartworking solutions, recruiters are more cautious in appreciating them. The emergence of new concepts such as smartworking will create new interactions between employers and employee.

The Adecco Work Trends Study was conducted in collaboration with the Università Cattolica di Milano, Italy.